In Japanese class, our vocabulary for this week includes a number of words for common things you'd find around your apartment or your neighborhood. In Japanese, you can easily tell a word that is considered a "Japanese" word, and one that has been imported from another language. "Japanese" words are written in Hiragana and "foreign" words are written in Katakana. I am totally fascinated by the words that are "foreign". I am assuming that the foreign words represent items that the Japanese didn't use until somewhat recently.
"Japanese" words in Hiragana
refrigerator: れいぞうこ (reizo-ko)
window: まど (mado)
park: こうえん (ko-en)
battery: でんち (denchi)
box: はこ (hako)
shelf: たな (tana)
coffeeshop: きっさてん (kissaten)
bookstore: ほんや (honya)
"Foreign" words in Katakana
light switch: スイッチ (suicchi)
bed: ベッド (beddo)
door: ドア (doa)
building: ビル (biru)
table: テーブル (te-buru)
mailbox: ポスト (posuto)
coffee: コーヒー (ko-hi-)
Fresh from Japanese class,
-Bre (and Kyle)
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Where is the backslash on a Japanese keyboard?
Yesterday I was stumped with a new challenge. I needed to type a backslash (\) in order to remotely log in to another computer. I looked and I looked, but I could not find a backslash. There's a forward slash (/) near the bottom right, but no backslash that I could find. Does anyone see one?
At any rate, in order to log into this computer, I first had to Google "backslash", go to the wikipedia page, copy the backslash, and paste it into my log in screen. Sheesh.
Small adventures.
-Bre (and Kyle)
Saturday, May 26, 2012
The grass is growing
One of the more surprising things that Kyle and I have learned about Japan is the difference between Japanese and American's attitudes towards grass.
In the U.S., grass is regularly attacked with a lawnmower to keep it short. So far this spring, I have seen two lawnmowers and a couple weed-whackers. A week or two ago, some of the undergrowth near my office was cut down with weed-whackers (but only near the main street through campus). Friday, the grass at the apartment building next door was cut and someone also cut a path to a little garden at our apartment building.
Most of the grass in the city has been healthily growing for two months now.
Above is the grass just outside my office. It comes up halfway on the bike tires.
To the left in this picture you can see where the undergrowth was cut down with weedwackers. Just after the landscaping work was down, the ground was brown dirt. Now it has a faint green hue of new growth.
Here is the grass outside our apartment door.
And the path cut into the grass to the yard in front of the building.
Our yard is totally overgrown. At first we thought it might be fun to play frisbee, but that doesn't seem possible now. The ground is too uneven, and the grass comes up to my knees.
In the U.S., grass is regularly attacked with a lawnmower to keep it short. So far this spring, I have seen two lawnmowers and a couple weed-whackers. A week or two ago, some of the undergrowth near my office was cut down with weed-whackers (but only near the main street through campus). Friday, the grass at the apartment building next door was cut and someone also cut a path to a little garden at our apartment building.
Most of the grass in the city has been healthily growing for two months now.
Above is the grass just outside my office. It comes up halfway on the bike tires.
To the left in this picture you can see where the undergrowth was cut down with weedwackers. Just after the landscaping work was down, the ground was brown dirt. Now it has a faint green hue of new growth.
Here is the grass outside our apartment door.
And the path cut into the grass to the yard in front of the building.
Our yard is totally overgrown. At first we thought it might be fun to play frisbee, but that doesn't seem possible now. The ground is too uneven, and the grass comes up to my knees.
Kyle and I went for a walk last night. Here I am looking down into a creek.
Much of the nearby creek is overgrown with Japanese knotweed... familiar to us since the last place we lived in Seattle also had a creek that was overgrown with knotweed.
Kyle had fun taking pictures of himself in the reflection of my sunglasses.
And finally- a beautiful wisteria that we found on our walk.
That's all for now,
-Bre (and Kyle)
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
A bicycle ride to the beach
On Sunday 5/20 we met up with our friends Olga, Valdis, Anton, Mami and Liam to bike down to the beach. We had not been to the beach before, but we found a path near our house that leads to the beach. It follows a small stream in a straight line, 12 km to the ocean. The day was sunny and warm. When we got close to the beach there was a bit of a breeze. The trail along the stream was exciting because there were two places where the trail totally disappeared and we had to walk around a flood gate.
Valdis had a good time. He slept most of the way there in his bicycle seat. Here you can see him playing with Mami. He enjoyed running around on the beach.
I was surprised to find this TV sitting in the ocean. Japan is usually very tidy, I was surprised to see so much trash at the beach. There was quite a bit of plastic garbage in the stream too. Someone suggested to me that this TV may have been thrown away because it is not digital. Japan recently switched over to all digital TV, and this has meant that many old TVs were thrown away.
The beach was a long party with BBQ, games, kids, ATVs and jet skis. There is a definite beach subculture that is different from the people you meet in the city.
We found a fire that was left burning unattended. We added more wood to get it really going. I stood downwind for the photo so you can really get a sense of the smoke. In the photo above we have from left to right Liam, Bre and Anton.
I sat too close to the fire and a big coal bounced off my jacket and burned through my pants. Tragedy! At least I was not burnt.
Bre took these photos of me drawing in the sand.
What do you think I wrote?
That's all for now,
-Kyle (and Bre)
Valdis had a good time. He slept most of the way there in his bicycle seat. Here you can see him playing with Mami. He enjoyed running around on the beach.
I was surprised to find this TV sitting in the ocean. Japan is usually very tidy, I was surprised to see so much trash at the beach. There was quite a bit of plastic garbage in the stream too. Someone suggested to me that this TV may have been thrown away because it is not digital. Japan recently switched over to all digital TV, and this has meant that many old TVs were thrown away.
The beach was a long party with BBQ, games, kids, ATVs and jet skis. There is a definite beach subculture that is different from the people you meet in the city.
We found a fire that was left burning unattended. We added more wood to get it really going. I stood downwind for the photo so you can really get a sense of the smoke. In the photo above we have from left to right Liam, Bre and Anton.
I sat too close to the fire and a big coal bounced off my jacket and burned through my pants. Tragedy! At least I was not burnt.
Bre took these photos of me drawing in the sand.
What do you think I wrote?
That's all for now,
-Kyle (and Bre)
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Eniwa-dake hike with H.I.O.C.
We went hiking with the Hokkaido International Outdoor Club (HIOC) last weekend, May 19th, at Eniwa-dake. The hike was organized by our fearless leader Leon. The hike was originally planned to be up Isari-dake, another mountain nearby. Unfortunately the trail became impassable because of the lack of snow on Isari, so we went down the road to Eniwa-dake instead. Dake translates into English as peak or highpoint.
The trail was well marked with signs like this one below. It was also incredibly steep. It seemed to try to go straight up the mountain without any unnecessary zig-zags. There were many parts where you needed to use one of the supplied ropes to pull yourself up.
Here is Bre demonstrating the rope climbing technique.
The trail has quite a bit of erosion because of its vertical nature. In some places you had to watch out for loose rocks from the climbers above you which would roll down the eroded channel we were hiking up.
We stopped for lunch at this spot near the top. It has a great view of Lake Shikotsu. Eniwa-dake has a number of hydrothermal vents near the peak. The vents are in a small crater that Bre says likely formed by an earlier eruption.
Here is our group photo (sans photographer) at the viewpoint. Thanks to Liran for letting me borrow his lens for the photo above. In the photo, from left to right are: Bre, Rick, Leon, Liran, Tokuda, and Saoka.
I like how the perspective of the photo above gives you the impression we are looking over a cliff.
Bre found this lovely Purple Trilliam on the way back down.
Finally I took this photo from the lake shore looking back at Eniwa-dake. It is nice to get a photo of the place where you were hiking. After the hike we went to an Onsen (Japanese Hot Spring) along the shore of Lake Shikotsu. It was a great way to unwind and relax after the tough hike.
That's all for now,
-Kyle (and Bre)
The trail was well marked with signs like this one below. It was also incredibly steep. It seemed to try to go straight up the mountain without any unnecessary zig-zags. There were many parts where you needed to use one of the supplied ropes to pull yourself up.
Here is Bre demonstrating the rope climbing technique.
The trail has quite a bit of erosion because of its vertical nature. In some places you had to watch out for loose rocks from the climbers above you which would roll down the eroded channel we were hiking up.
We stopped for lunch at this spot near the top. It has a great view of Lake Shikotsu. Eniwa-dake has a number of hydrothermal vents near the peak. The vents are in a small crater that Bre says likely formed by an earlier eruption.
Here is our group photo (sans photographer) at the viewpoint. Thanks to Liran for letting me borrow his lens for the photo above. In the photo, from left to right are: Bre, Rick, Leon, Liran, Tokuda, and Saoka.
I like how the perspective of the photo above gives you the impression we are looking over a cliff.
Bre found this lovely Purple Trilliam on the way back down.
Finally I took this photo from the lake shore looking back at Eniwa-dake. It is nice to get a photo of the place where you were hiking. After the hike we went to an Onsen (Japanese Hot Spring) along the shore of Lake Shikotsu. It was a great way to unwind and relax after the tough hike.
That's all for now,
-Kyle (and Bre)
Thursday, May 10, 2012
More Spring Flowers
I wanted to send out collection of spring flower photos that have been languishing on my little point-and-shoot camera. Some of these photos are from the Botanical Gardens, some from Hokkaido University, and some from private gardens near our apartment.
Yellow Star of Bethlehem
Two photos of hyacinths
A carpet of primrose
A yellow swamp flower that I don't know the name of.
More primrose
I think this is a trillium
I don't know this one
"Wild" growing tulips on campus.
A distant garden near the orchard on campus.
Below are two close-ups of the tulip garden.
Not a flower... A bust of William Clark, founder of Hokkaido University
The three below are from a garden on my bike ride into my office.
That's all for now.
-Bre (and Kyle)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)